Looking at your contract in the context of its whole life span gives you the perspective to manage the contract from day one in a manner that will help win the recompete.  The Recompete Solutions Contract Lifecycle shown above will help you better recompete any size or length of contract.                                                 

Why look at your contract in terms of a lifecycle?

Running a contract is hard work. There are performance levels to meet, staff to manage, customer managers to keep on your side, costs to manage and reduce, profit margins to maintain and most likely grow over the period. There are pressures from your own company, from the customer, their staff and end users, Health and Safety inspections, environmental targets, other targets. There are management and review meetings and a hundred other things that will keep you busy.

With all these daily pressures and monthly targets, it is easy to not spend time and effort putting in place actions that get you ready for the recompete. Then when the recompete is near, you look back and wonder why you hadn’t fixed the underlying issues years ago.

Your customer is not standing still. Market conditions are changing as new technology, competitors, and contracting techniques enter the picture. Your customer may also be changing their strategy, their management direction, and meeting new challenges.

If your contract hasn’t changed to meet customer needs and market best practice, then you could be out of date when the recompete comes. Your customer could be looking for a responsive contractor who can deliver new solutions.

Seeing your contract in terms of a lifecycle helps you think ahead, make improvements, and plan for the recompete. Also you will have a wealth of good information, data, and stories to show the improvements made in the recompete, and the customer should see you as the type of business that they want to deal with in the future.

 

– Nigel Thacker of Rebidding Solutions